One woman in four is drinking too much, says Government

One in four women is drinking more than officially approved safe levels, Whitehall warned yesterday.

It said millions are consuming more alcohol than they thought because estimates of the strength of drinks are out of date.

A glass of wine which has long been counted as one unit of alcohol should really be counted as two.

The effect of the rethink is greatest for women, because most of the changes in alcohol estimates published yesterday by the Government's Office for National Statistics involve wine.

This forms less than 20 per cent of a typical man's drinking but it is more than 40 per cent of the average women's alcohol intake.

Under the old method of counting alcohol intake, around 14 per cent of women aged between 25 and retirement age were drinking more than the officiallyrecommended safe limit of 14 units a week.

The new measurements mean that a quarter are over the limit.

To reach the official unsafe level, a woman now needs to drink just two glasses of wine a night.

Many of those now considered unsafe drinkers are in the highest income and professional brackets.

According to the new calculations, an average senior female manager in a large company is now drinking 15.2 units of alcohol a week.

Those with incomes of more than £1,000 a week and living in London

and the South East are also among the most likely to be drinking over recommended levels.

Among men, a third over the age of 25 are now thought to be drinking more than Health Department recommended safe levels of 21 units a week.

The new methods of reckoning the alcohol content of drinks replace those that have been used in Whitehall surveys since 1978.

Reasons for the old levels being wrong included bigger wine glasses used

in bars, restaurants and homes and the increasing strength of wine, especially highly popular New World varieties.

Pub wine glasses used to hold 125 millilitres, the ONS report said, but now glasses holding 175 or 250 are common.

The same applies to glasses used at home.

Popular wine brands of 30 years ago were rated as nine per cent alcohol.

Today's New World wines are often measured at 14 per cent.

Many beers and lagers have also increased in strength in recent years, the ONS said.

The rethink comes in the wake of promises from Downing Street to reconsider the 24-hour pub and offlicence opening laws brought in by Tony Blair and rising concern over the impact of heavy drinking on town centre disorder and the Health Service.

Ministers said the new estimates gave a better picture of actual alcohol consumption.

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said: "Larger glass sizes and higher alcohol content of wine in particular over a number of years mean more of us are drinking more than we think.

"The Government is planning a major new multi-million pound campaign in the spring to coincide with the introduction of new labelling on all bottles and cans that will show the Government's sensible drinking message and the alcohol unit content."

But the drinks industry - which fears the new measurements may be used to push up taxes on drink - said that the official approach to alcohol and drinking is becoming chaotic.

Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, said: "This report only adds to the confusion from the Government on sensible drinking.

"The fact remains that alcohol consumption is decreasing and more young people are abstaining from drinking at all.

"The Government ought to focus on the long term causes of problem drinking through education, and not punish everyone with an unfair and unneeded tax increase."

There has long been controversy over the 'safe' alcohol limits of 21 and 14 units a week, considered reasonable by some doctors but ludicrous by others.

In the 1990s, the safe levels were briefly revised to 28 and 21 units a week.

This autumn one of the experts who set the "safe" levels in 1987 said the figures were no more than an "intelligent guess" which had been "plucked out of the air".